A woman is facing deportation, and being separated from her husband and 10-year-old son, despite a court ruling that the family have the right to live together in the UK.
The Home Office has told Malwattege Peiris to leave the UK despite the court ruling in her favour and correspondence from the Home Office confirming this decision.
Campaigners have described the Home Office decision to ignore a court ruling as “shameful”.
Peiris’s husband, Sumith Kodagoda Ranasinghage, an Italian citizen, was granted pre-settled status under the EU settlement scheme (EUSS) in 2020. Peiris, a permanent Italian resident and the couple’s son, Kevin, an Italian citizen, applied to join him under the EUSS family permit scheme. The application was delayed by the pandemic and the Home Office refused it in April 2022, highlighting a lack of supporting evidence of the family relationship.
The family appealed to the first tier of the immigration tribunal, and the judge ruled in July 2022 that the family was genuine and had the right to live in the UK together, saying in his judgment: “This is a simple case whereby inadequate documentary evidence was provided at the time of the applications. Having heard a full explanation and having considered the original documents today I find the appellants are close family members.”
The Home Office granted mother and son the right to enter the UK in December 2022, confirming the grant of the EUSS family permit in an email sent in May 2023. The following month Kevin received a further confirmatory letter from the Home Office and, although he is only 10 years old, officials informed him he had the right to work and to access benefits including his pension.
In November last year, Peiris received a further letter from the Home Office saying her case remained “under consideration”, despite the court having already granted her permission to live in the UK. In a further Home Office letter dated 7 February 2024 she was told she did not meet the requirements of the EUSS.
While the letter says she has the right to appeal to the tribunal that had already granted her permission to stay in the UK, it warns that if she stays in the UK without permission she can be detained, fined, prosecuted, imprisoned, removed from the UK and banned from returning.
“I am speechless and shocked at the Home Office decision requiring me to leave my young son, who is in full-time education, and husband behind in the UK. I have no future without my family. My son and husband are my world,” said Peiris.
Naga Kandiah from MTC Solicitors, who is challenging the Home Office’s failure to implement the tribunal’s decision, said: “This is a classic example of the Home Office misapplying the law and failing to implement tribunal decisions. A family is now at risk of being torn apart due to the Home Office’s incompetence.”
Andreea Dumitrache of the organisation the3million, which campaigns to protect the rights of EU citizens in the UK, condemned the Home Office’s decision. “The Home Office is keeping families apart, fighting tooth and nail to separate people from their loved ones. It’s shameful to go against a court decision and continue to deny EU citizens’ their rights to family reunion.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “All visa applications are carefully considered on their individual merits, on the basis of the evidence provided and in accordance with the immigration rules. It is longstanding government policy that we do not routinely comment on individual cases.”
